Why aren’t the Tories doing more to address the Cost of Living Crisis? That’s the question I keep coming back to. They must know it’s about to bite. They must know it’s not *just* going to swallow a few plebby, disabled people and/or the dependents of the poor souls who shine their shoes. In the same way the Housing Crisis started off “only” impacting the working class on the checkouts or your postman or bus drivers - and now engulfs the children of middle and the upper middle class also... “What do you MEAN you can’t afford a house deposit?” “I can’t. The average price of a flat round here is £512,000. A 20% deposit would be 100k and my rent eats up all of my saving potential!" “But you’ve got a good job!? You’re a GP, son, for God’s sake!?” “Dad, I’m on £75k. I have a wife and two kids. My wife had to drop out of work because childcare’s so expensive and between that, rent, soaring bills, food, petrol… where do you think I’m going to save a hundred thousand pounds from?!” “…” “I mean, could you maybe look at downsizing or equity release or something?” “…” “Dad?” “Woke.” Perhaps they think Cost of Living is similar? Something that simply won't effect them, or they shouldn't have to bother with? Cost of Living is a different beast, though. It won’t be something Barrington-Smythe tells Royston-Fairfax about at the Members Club. Partly because the members club will close owing to a lack of staff, soaring (uncapped business) energy rates, but mostly because this isn’t a generation-specific crisis. It’s not something that just ruins the futures of university graduate metropolitan avocado addicts. It will decimate the savings and credit ratings of your Mum & Dad and grandparents and their friends too. Put simply: Barrington-Smythe doesn’t give a shit if the average house price in London goes up to three million quid and the average rent becomes 80% of your boyfriend's salary. It’s good for the portfolio, dear boy! But gas/electric bills? Big houses with 20 radiators? Shuttering small businesses they invested in?Their tenants unable to pay their rent? Well, then, whether you’re a single mother in a council flat or a Tory grandee wondering why your shares in Pret, Barrett and Sony have all just tanked - the Cost of Living Crisis will be that great equaliser. An economic Grim Reaper eventually visiting all of us. So why aren’t they taking it seriously? Well.. I mean, as for right now… doesn’t take a genius to work out why Truss and Sunak specifically aren’t spending much time on it. They can only handle one simple task at any one time and right now that’s wooing the Members. Ah yes, those precious members. Good to know the priorities of the nation are being assessed by the great minds of the country's conservative clubs, who - by the way - still want Boris Johnson to stay on as PM. By a margin of two to one. TWO TO ONE. Difficult to work out quite what that says about conservatives' claim to Fiscal Responsibility or indeed about their understanding of Britain's impending financial doom. The same guy whose inability to implement a meaningful price cap, and whose ideological opposition to nationalising energy firms, who promised cheaper energy bills but forced the hikes - THAT GUY. That guy who caused all this - AND WHO IS CURRENTLY ON HIS SECOND HOLIDAY IN 4 WEEKS WHILE ROME BURNS - is polling as their preferred candidate. Fuck me gently. And it's not even that surprising. As a Home Counties white guy who's rubbed shoulders with some of these people, I can absolutely imagine them swilling their brandy at the bar, frothing their support in Johnson's ear, blasting how he's their caretaker-of-choice, while the rest of us opt instead for 'take care x'. Maybe that somewhat inaccurately suggests that Cost of Living will still adhere to Britain's much-loved class system. I think to some Tories, they know and accept there's not much more they can take from us to feed it. I mean, after the £38bn they creamed from us last year, the Austerity before that - perhaps they’ve reached a point they know they can’t enrich themselves from the public purse much more, but they can make our lives shitter to replicate that same feeling of superiority. Promoting by way of demoting, if you will. Works quite well for Conservative voters too. In my experience, they like to feel important and wealthy, you see, even if they’re kind of, actually, sort of.. err… not? Most of them sit around that £50k-£70k bracket. Traditionally a comfortable, Middle Class income. If only these poor, sad bastards could understand the role they actually play. Lured in with promises of low tax and a small state only to be clobbered with the highest tax burden for seventy years and jail if they protest it. Because (it’s my opinion) the Tory Party functions purely as an administration team for billionaires who buy policy. Little more. Occasionally they’ll toss a sweetener to the masses. Something to keep them happy. Something superficial and meaningless to their everyday lives ("We’re going to make pronouns illegal!"). But in the day-to-day running and in the way they govern and the bills they whip for and against - they are quite clearly there to serve the interests of grey-haired fuckers with hundreds of millions of pounds (/rubles), most of whom donate generously to CCHQ. So when your mate, Johnny SpaffBalls on £54k, a Manager at Sainsbury’s says he votes Tory because he “worked hard and Labour would just tax me for it”, make sure you give him the same look my mates gave me when I told them I found a guy hiding in my girlfriend’s bedroom wardrobe but it's cool coz she told me they were only playing Hide & Seek EVEN THOUGH WHEN I SUGGESTED WE PLAY HIDE & SEEK SHE NEVER WANTED TO THO. Whoever wins the leadership (obvs probs Truss) will ‘win’ a murderous shit-show. It has the potential to be the biggest economic meltdown for a hundred years. Looking back on this race will read more like a Shakespearian tragedy about ambition and humility than anything resembling Hope & Change. Or for those partial to metaphor: Truss is a contestant on Blockbusters but in each of the five rounds, she has to surrender another piece of her dignity, another chunk of her principles, sacrifice and savage a few more of her working relationships, and after five rounds of gruelling - at times humiliating - tests of her suitability, she finally wins a second-hand, clapped out Fiesta. And on winning this thing, she drives it out of Borehamwood, onto the M25 - and immediately car-wrecks in a colossal and bloody 65m-car-pile-up. Conservatives asleep at the wheel.
